The Accession
I didn’t feel until then that Master Seven Bresciane had been tense, but then he relaxed, smiling and nodding in his strange way. And then he spoke gently, as if to a young child he felt great kindness for. “This was exactly what Mr. Roy told me: that we should follow you.”
“Really? He told you that?” Who was this man?
He leaned back with a gentle smile. “And if you refused, we were supposed to kill you.”
“Oh.” That made things difficult. This man was loyal only to Roy, and Roy was dead. I took a deep breath. I knew Family tradition well enough, and I’d read Tony’s book. “You know what we must do.”
He smiled that affable, kindly smile. And it chilled me. “Yes, of course I know. But I want to hear you say it.”
There was always the question of who attacked us, and back th
